Military Land Swap Inches Forward

Plans for a land exchange between the Arkansas Army National Guard and Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority are slowly moving forward, according to both sides of the deal.

Plans for a land exchange between the Arkansas Army National Guard and Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority are slowly moving forward, according to both sides of the deal.

The potential swap would give the Guard room for a new training center on 200 acres, and the FCRA land for industrial development on more than 500 acres.

"The process will probably take at least another nine months to get it done," FCRA executive director Ivy Owen said. "But it is going forward. We have engaged a local appraiser to appraise the two parcels of property and the minerals."

The proposal cedes FCRA-owned land between Arkansas 22 and Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center to the Guard.

"We were talking about an operational readiness training center to go there," Col. Mike Stransky told members of the FCRA last week. "It’s kind of one of those blue-sky dreams. But if that did happen, that would definitely bring in a lot more training use into the area, which turns into revenue for you guys."

A majority of that acreage, 75 percent to 80 percent according to FCRA officials, is within Barling city limits. In return, the Army is offering more than 500 acres south of Custer Boulevard along what’s known as Donahoe Ridge.

"We would be getting 522 acres of property on Custer and the interstate right-of-way that we could convert to industrial property," Owen said. "It has a tremendous amount of rock and shale we could mine."

Once completed, the appraisals will be sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for review, Owen said.

"They’ll make a recommendation whether the decision to go forward with the land exchange would be done locally in the Little Rock office," he said. "In some cases depending on the differential in the appraisal price, it may have to go to the Corps office in D.C. We hope it can be made locally. It would speed up the process quite a bit."